“U.S. Senator Landrieu questions Republican commitment to Keystone” is the funniest headline you’ll see today. Thank your higher powers that it was brought to us by Reuters.

Democratic U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu accused Republicans on Wednesday of being more interested in exploiting the long-delayed Keystone XL oil pipeline project as an election issue than in voting to build it.

In a speech on the Senate floor, Landrieu, who represents the oil-producing state of Louisiana where public support for Keystone runs high, urged Republican leaders to reverse themselves and accept a deal offered by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Reid, a Nevada Democrat, has said that if Republicans allow passage of a bipartisan energy bill, he would permit a separate vote on Keystone, a project that polls show most Americans support.

I would like to remind Mary Landrieu that the person who has been stalling the Keystone XL pipeline in the Senate is of her party – Mr. Reid himself. Looking beyond the Senate, it is the Democratic President of the United States of America, Barack Obama, who has refused to make any decision one way or the other on the subject of the pipeline.

Landrieu would have you believe that she is above using the pipeline as a talking point, despite the fact that she herself is using the project as a way to distance herself from Obama. Her intellectual dishonesty isn’t new, but reeks of desperation in a race where she cannot get above 50% support in any poll that has any sort of validity.

She is also incredibly out of touch if she honestly believes the Republicans in the Senate will believe anything Reid says. He is a man who has repeatedly taken to the floor to slander private citizens and has blocked any Republican effort at meaningful bipartisanship in legislation. He believes in Republican forfeiture of position as the only means of negotiating. If Republicans did accept his blackmail (which is exactly what his terms are), chances are they get nothing and he gets everything.

Reid knows exactly what his deal will bring. It will either bring liberal energy policy, it could save his majority leadership position, and it could keep him in the best spot to continue to continue to lambast the Koch brothers, which is apparently the only thing that makes him happy anymore. I can only assume this energy bill calls for using the Koch brothers money as an alternative fuel source.

Landrieu either knows Reid is really up to, which makes her dishonest, or she assumes Reid means the best for the Republican party and the Keystone XL pipeline, which makes her a naive fool.